


touch

by the_fluffy_unicorn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dorks in Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Sabriel - Freeform, but there are a few bits of it yeah, graphic depictions of emotional turmoil, sassy banter, smut free as usual, well not too graphic this time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 19:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7401700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_fluffy_unicorn/pseuds/the_fluffy_unicorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel is back, and Sam is set on making him feel safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	touch

Sam's lips curl into a smile as soon as he steps into the room. Gabriel is sprawled on the couch, snoring lightly, the TV remote digging into his cheek. His right foot is halfway on the floor and his hair is all over his face, and the position he’s in could hardly be comfortable, yet he’s out like a light. Sam carefully dislodges the remote and turns off the TV. The quiet that falls around him is filled with soft, peaceful noises, and Sam's smile grows soft, too. Soft and wistful.

It’s been months since Gabriel landed on their doorstep, too battered and exhausted to form coherent sentences, and they took him in, no questions asked. Sam was surprised when Dean didn’t argue, didn’t try to push Gabriel or demand answers, letting him heal and get himself together at his own pace. When Sam asked him about it, Dean shrugged and replied with a single word.

Purgatory.

Sam wanted to ask, then, how Dean managed to guess that, but caught himself just in time. Of course Dean would know. And Cas confirmed it, too – he arrived as fast as he could when he heard the news. He couldn’t do much, he told them. Gabriel had to heal on his own.

Gabriel didn’t talk much at first, spending his days and nights in the spare room they cleared for him. It was difficult to say for sure, but Sam had a feeling that Gabriel didn’t get much sleep – and he needed it to recover.

Little things gave him away. How he would flinch at a tad too loud noise of a cup being set on the table, or the sound of footsteps – it was barely there, that flinch, a split second before he could place the sound – but there nonetheless. Or that one time when Sam tried to draw his attention by touching him on the shoulder, and felt him tense up instantly before he jerked away. Gabriel apologized then, as soon as his brain registered the situation, but Sam made a mental note not to touch him again.

Gabriel didn’t feel safe around them, that much was obvious.

Sam had been trying to come up with solutions to fix this for almost a week when a perfect opportunity presented itself. It was yet another night when he gave up on sleep and went to the kitchen to make some herbal tea. As he was walking past the library, he heard something – a faint sound of rustling pages – and had a definite feeling that someone was there.

He didn’t pause to look in and continued to the kitchen, making two mugs of tea instead of one and going straight to the library on his way back.

“Hey,” Sam said softly, placing one of the mugs on the table in front of Gabriel. “Couldn’t sleep?”

There it was again. That barely there flinch, and the way Gabriel looked up at him, with guilt and hope in his eyes – guilt because they did everything for him and he still couldn’t trust them, and hope that Sam didn’t notice him flinch.

Sam pretended not to, sitting down in a chair opposite him.

“Something like that,” Gabriel said, nodding and averting his gaze at the same time. “Thought that perhaps a change of scenery would help.”

“What are you reading?”

“Oh, just some nutjob’s journal. Found it in the storage room next to mine. He was a man of letters, crazy on languages, among other things, and one day he convinced himself that all of his colleagues had been possessed by the demons. He switched to writing in Enochian while he was busy trying to find a cure for his poor brethren – which is ridiculous, by the way, any sane person knows that reading Enochian is not a problem for a demon. I’ve been reading about his failed attempt to get a dozen of chickens baptized before cooking and serving them as a Sunday picnic special when you came in. It’s quite entertaining, really. Besides, I like reading in Enochian. Helps me relax.”

Gabriel took a sip from his mug and sputtered all over the floor.

“What in dad’s forsaken name is this?! Sam Winchester, are you trying to poison me?”

Sam couldn’t help but laugh at Gabriel's outrage while Gabriel himself was busy glaring and huffing at him.

“It’s – it’s just mint chamomile tea, Gabriel. I very much doubt it could kill you!”

“Well maybe it alone couldn’t – but the depressing lack of sugar in it might just do the trick!”

“Oh, come on! Herbal tea is supposed to help you sleep. Sugar most definitely keeps you awake. It would be quite pointless to mix the two.”

“Okay Sammy, for future reference: if I ever agree to drink something without an excessive amount of sugar in it, you should know that it’s probably time to feed me some baptized chicken.”

Sam rolled his eyes but got up from his chair, heading to the kitchen.

“Fine, I’ll get you some honey. And no objections. Sugar in herbal tea is just gross!”

“How dare you say things like this to me!” Gabriel called after him. “Sugar can’t be gross, it’s fucking impossible!”

Sam's laughter boomed across the empty corridor before he could catch himself so as not to wake Dean up. But Gabriel was grinning wide when Sam returned with the honey pot, and Sam thought that Dean would just have to deal with a bit of laughter at 3 am if Gabriel could relax for the first time since he got there as a result.

“Just so you know,” Sam said, trying to look stern and failing spectacularly, “I went to get it for you only for that baptized chicken reference.”

“And here I was, thinking that you liked me when you’re simply addicted to my impeccable sense of humour.”

“Well, I’m not sure you can call cracking a good joke every once in a while ‘impeccable’, but keep this up and you might get there,” Sam said, settling back in his chair and sipping his tea.

“Please. I’m older than dirt, remember? I was the source of every single dirty joke you can find, as well as maybe half of PG-13 ones. Except for the bear joke, I’m not responsible for that one. It was just Odin’s awful taste.”

“What bear joke?”

“Nuh-huh, not gonna say it. Might catch that horrifying lack of sense of humour just by thinking about it.” Gabriel shuddered.

“Okay, but if I die of curiosity I’m totally blaming you.”

“Trust me, it’s not worth it. Besides, curiosity is lethal only for cats. You’re not a cat, you’re a moose, Sammy, everyone knows that. I think you’ll live.”

“Fine. Could you at least translate some more of dead guy’s journal for me? Since umm… we’re both seem to be unable to sleep? I’m kinda curious to know what happened to him after the chicken fiasco.”

Gabriel stared at him with an absolutely blank expression for a beat.

“As you wish,” he said, deadpan, and then winked at Sam just before he dove back into the journal.

Sam rolled his eyes and huffed out a laugh, catching Gabriel's fleeting smile as he thumbed through the journal.

The most difficult thing was that Gabriel seemed to be his usual self – sassy banter, crude jokes and incessant flirting – ever since he crashed in the bunker and slept most of his exhaustion off. He was clearly worn out to the bone, but his temper and personality remained the same – except for those little flinches and twitches Sam picked up on. And it didn’t take him too long to come to the conclusion that all of Gabriel's usual behaviour, all that flirting and smartassery was just a mask that he – rather convincingly at first – used to hide his pain.

Sam didn’t attempt talking to him about it that night. Together they laughed over the ridiculous stuff the crazy dead guy came up with in his journal until they were both exhausted enough to try and get some sleep.

Perhaps it was just wishful thinking, but Sam thought Gabriel looked a bit better the following day. They never talked about it, but a couple of days later Sam found himself back in the library with hot cocoa courtesy of Gabriel and a selection of old silent movies he found in the basement. They picked a couple of comedies that were quite funny by themselves and even more so with Gabriel's running commentary, and several hours flew by without either of them noticing.

Sam asked Gabriel if he wanted to talk about it, just before they went to sleep. Gabriel shook his head, visibly growing tense, and Sam rushed an apology, saying that Gabriel didn’t have to tell him – or anyone – but also that the offer would always be there, should he chose to take it.

Gabriel didn’t react, and Sam turned to go to his room, and just as he was about to close the door behind him, he heard a quiet _okay_.

That was a start.

They began spending more time together, apart from their midnight meetings, and shortly after their first movie night Sam caught himself thinking that he wished for Gabriel's constant flirting to actually mean something, to be more than just a convenient mask.

But he also remembered the way Gabriel flinched away from his touch, and made his peace with the fact that it simply wasn’t happening. What would an archangel have in common with a human anyway, and such a poor example of one at that?

They talked more, too; about everything and nothing in particular. Gabriel liked to tell the ‘historically corrected’ tales – his version of the important moments in human history never failing to leave them both a breathless laughing mess. Sam talked about his childhood, about school and friends he could never get too close with simply because they had to move again and again with their father’s endless quest for revenge. Gabriel told stories about the pagan gods who became his adopted family for a really long time. Sam spoke about Stanford, about running away from his life, how amazing it was while it lasted. Gabriel told him about running away from Heaven. Sam brought him up to date with everything that happened ever since he was killed by Lucifer.

Gabriel never talked about what happened to him in Purgatory.

But little by little his tension started to dissipate. He was sleeping more; Sam could tell – their middle-of-the-night conversations happening once every three or even four nights instead of every other night. He stopped flinching at the sounds and casual touches – in fact, it was the other way round now, the touching a bit excessive – but Sam figured that it was only logical after that much time spent with none at all, and tried not to read too much into it.

As soon as Gabriel got a sliver of his powers back he spent it all on snapping up a couch and two overstuffed, but incredibly comfy armchairs for the entertainment corner of the library, rendering Dean speechless for a whole minute before he proclaimed that it was a brilliant idea, wondering why neither of them thought of that years ago. Gabriel snorted and said something about Dean’s mental abilities, adding dibs on the couch for at least a week before either of them could protest.

Dean seemed content enough with the armchair, and then they argued for about three hours over the order they should watch movies during their newly-proclaimed daily movie nights, each of them appealing to Sam with their arguments but neither of them listening to his replies. Sam left halfway through their argument, figuring that most likely they’d watch whatever Gabriel chose. He was proved right that very night, with Gabriel graciously offering him a spot on the couch when he saw Sam making a face at his movie choice, just to find Gabriel's feet in his lap the minute he sat down.

Sam told himself not to read too much into it and concentrated on the movie.

Throughout the week, Gabriel kept finding excuses to offer Sam a spot on the couch, and every time without fail Gabriel's feet or even his head ended up in Sam's lap. Sam glared at Dean every time he as much as tried to open his mouth to tease him about it, and did his best not to think of the obnoxious butterflies in his stomach at every casual touch from Gabriel.

Which brings him to here and now: Gabriel passed out on the couch, snoring and drooling on the cushion a little; and he, Sam Winchester, standing in front of said couch, watching Gabriel sleep and feeling like he is drowning, because all of a sudden he is acutely aware that he is in love with the archangel. It all comes over him like a rush; his fingers twitch with all the memories of Gabriel's innocent touches merging into one, a desperate desire to touch and touch and _touch,_ to run his fingers through Gabriel's hair or just his fingertips over his exposed collarbone, anything, everything-

But Gabriel looks so peaceful in his sleep, so relaxed – more peaceful, Sam thinks, than he’s ever been – so he takes a deep breath and slowly exhales, taking a step towards the couch.

He still needs to wake Gabriel enough to convince him to move to his own bed – if he doesn’t, he’ll have to deal with Gabriel's grumbling all day tomorrow. His sudden revelation is quite enough to send his mind reeling, and he’s got no intention to deal with the amount of adorable and touchy-feely that is grumpy Gabriel on top of that.

Sam kneels next to the couch and brushes the hair off Gabriel's forehead before he can stop himself. He holds his breath, but Gabriel doesn’t react, still snoring lightly, and Sam breathes out, relieved. He puts a hand on Gabriel's shoulder and shakes it lightly. Gabriel doesn’t move.

“Gabriel,” Sam says quietly. “Wake up.”

Gabriel mutters something incoherent and rolls onto the side, turning his back on Sam. Sam chuckles and shakes his shoulder again.

“Gabriel, we gotta get you to your bed, c’mon. I promise you, you’ll thank me in the morning.”

“No.”

“Come on, you’ll be all sore if you sleep here and you’ll blame me for not waking you.”

“No.”

“Please?” Sam pulled his best puppy-eyed look even though Gabriel couldn’t see him. “I know that you’re, like, a third awake already, can you manage another third and walk to your bedroom?”

“No.”

“It’s not that far, it’s just down the corridor from here.”

“No. S’miles an’ miles away, S’my.”

Sam finds that his hand is in Gabriel's hair again, but he doesn’t move away from the touch, so Sam doesn’t stop. Gabriel’s hair is soft as silk. He rolls over so that he is facing Sam and burrows deeper into the cushions with a groan, bumping his head into Sam's hand just like a cat. Sam chuckles and pulls his nose.

“Hey, wake up. I’m not leaving you to spend another night here, so get moving.”

“No.”

Gabriel frowns, and Sam wants nothing more than to kiss that frown off his face. Instead, he gets up and tries pulling Gabriel upright. Gabriel is limp and surprisingly heavy. Of course, Sam thinks, archangel, not human. But it’s too easy to forget when Gabriel is half-asleep and looks like a dishevelled sparrow. An adorable dishevelled sparrow.

Sam continues to pull and almost manages to get him upright, when Gabriel shifts his weight so that Sam is caught off balance and sags onto a couch with a surprised _oof!_ as Gabriel lands on top of him, snakes his arms around Sam's neck and cuddles into him in a matter of seconds.

“Carry me.”

Gabriel's voice comes out muffled, and Sam isn’t quite sure he’s hearing right. His arms, however, come up to wrap around Gabriel, completely on their own.

“Carry me. You’re awake, m’not. Carry me.”

Gabriel's breath is warm against Sam's chest, and he cannot quite suppress a shiver. He gulps.

“I – I don’t think I can even lift you, Gabriel.”

“Sure you can. You’re strong.”

Sam sighs and gets up from the couch on the first try – now Gabriel is not heavy at all. Suspicious, Sam tries to get a look at his face, but it’s still buried in Sam's chest, and by the looks of it Gabriel is asleep again. He grunts and starts walking towards Gabriel's room.

They make it to the room without any incidents and Sam carefully lowers Gabriel onto the bed, pulling the covers from under him. Gabriel burrows into the pillow as Sam covers him with the blanket, and it looks like he hasn’t even woken up and is still sound asleep.

Sam moves to leave the room, but then he is leaning in and brushing his lips against Gabriel's forehead: a gentle caress rather than a kiss.

“Goodnight, Gabriel,” Sam whispers against his forehead, and as he is pulling back to leave the room he meets Gabriel's eyes, wide open and awake, staring into his, and it’s as if they are frozen in this moment forever, the two of them looking into each other’s eyes in the almost dark room.

“Stay?” Gabriel whispers,

eons later,

and it’s everything that Sam needs to lean back in and kiss him.

 

 

 


End file.
